id stringlengths 16 16 | title stringlengths 1 203 | author stringlengths 2 40 | poem stringlengths 1 87.3k | labels_l1 listlengths 1 10 | labels_l2 listlengths 0 15 | labels_l1_names listlengths 1 10 | labels_l2_names listlengths 0 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
f33c1f065cfb07a2 | Poem for Haruko | June Jordan | I never thought I’d keep a record of my pain
or happiness
like candles lighting the entire soft lace
of the air
around the full length of your hair/a shower
organized by God
in brown and auburn
undulations luminous like particles
of flame
But now I do
retrieve an afternoon of apricots
and water interspersed ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
a97aaf8b0ec6bf63 | Reunion | Dana Gioia | This is my past where no one knows me.These are my friends whom I can’t name—Here in a field where no one chose me,The faces older, the voices the same.Why does this stranger rise to greet me?What is the joke that makes him smile,As he calls the children together to meet me,Bringing them forward in single file?I nod pr... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
08fefc39c4fd85b7 | Syringa | John Ashbery | Orpheus liked the glad personal quality
Of the things beneath the sky. Of course, Eurydice was a part
Of this. Then one day, everything changed. He rends
Rocks into fissures with lament. Gullies, hummocks
Can’t withstand it. The sky shudders from one horizon
To the other, almost ready to give up wholeness.
Then A... | [
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S10-3",
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
f9336d47da4cf06e | The End of a Beautiful Era | Joseph Brodsky | Since the stern art of poetry calls for words, I, morose,
deaf, and balding ambassador of a more or less
insignificant nation that’s stuck in this super
power, wishing to spare my old brain,
hand myself my own topcoat and head for the main
street: to purchase the evening paper.
Wind disperses the foliag... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
fe4209b8ae064b09 | Louisiana Line | Betty Adcock | The wooden scent of wagons, the sweat of animals—these places keep everything—breath of the cotton gin, black damp floors of the icehouse. Shadows the color of a mirror’s back break across faces. The luck is always bad. This light is brittle, old pale hair kept in a letter. The wheeze of porch swings ... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
d3abcdf23457d9c2 | Trollius and trellises | Charles Bukowski | of course, I may die in the next ten minutes
and I’m ready for that
but what I’m really worried about is
that my editor-publisher might retire
even though he is ten years younger than
I.
it was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe
old age of 45)
when we began our unholy alliance to
test the literary waters,
... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Aging"
] |
a6fc968a93e48b89 | Frederick Douglass | Robert Hayden | When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politician... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
5388f17c2707ddfb | The Icehouse in Summer | Howard Nemerov | see Amos, 3:15
A door sunk in a hillside, with a bolt
thick as the boy’s arm, and behind that door
the walls of ice, melting a blue, faint light,
an air of cedar branches, sawdust, fern:
decaying seasons keeping from decay.
A summer guest, the boy had never seen
(a servant told him of it) how the lake
froze thr... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Summer"
] |
dc4f7df1d4b040c2 | Instincts | Linda Rodriguez | A mother possum crawled down the chimney
the spring Donny came to us
because both sets of his parents had kicked him out,
the same April after your dad and I divorced
when you kicked a hole in the dining room wall.
The possum was swollen with young
she would later carry, half-grown, on her back
or hanging from h... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
dbac423af39c2d04 | Belle Isle, 1949 | Philip Levine | We stripped in the first warm spring night
and ran down into the Detroit River
to baptize ourselves in the brine
of car parts, dead fish, stolen bicycles,
melted snow. I remember going under
hand in hand with a Polish highschool girl
I'd never seen before, and the cries
our breath made caught at the same time
o... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
7fa69fc2e0bd3426 | I Am Merely Posing for a Photograph | Juan Felipe Herrera | I am merely posing for a photograph.
Remember, when the Nomenclature
stops you, tell them that—“Sirs, he was posing
for my camera, that is all.” . . . yes, that may just work.
My eyes:
clear, hazel like my father’s, gaze across the sea, my hands at my side, my
legs spread apart in the wet sands, my pants crumpled... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
42fc2104b7f13bb2 | I Know, I Remember, But How Can I Help You | Hayden Carruth | The northern lights. I wouldn’t have noticed them
if the deer hadn’t told me
a doe her coat of pearls her glowing hoofs
proud and inquisitive
eager for my appraisal
and I went out into the night with electrical steps
but with my head ... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-9",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
9d727d2d45e8a8c5 | The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants - (1350) | Emily Dickinson | The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -
At Evening, it is not
At Morning, in a Truffled Hut
It stop opon a Spot
As if it tarried always
And yet it’s whole Career
Is shorter than a Snake’s Delay -
And fleeter than a Tare -
’Tis Vegetation’s Juggler -
The Germ of Alibi -
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubb... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
9f03477b6d8c4213 | Fooled Me for Years with the Wrong Pronouns | Gwyneth Lewis | You made me cry in cruel stations,So I missed many trains. You married others In plausible buildings. The subsequent sonBecame my boss. You promised me nothingBut blamed me for doubting when who wouldn’t.If I knew how to please you — who have found Out my faults. In dreams I’m wild with guilt. Have pityKill it. Then, ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S1-9",
"S8-1",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
830c0d5473d2c1f1 | 90 North | Randall Jarrell | At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides
I sailed all night—till at last, with my black beard,
My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole.
There in the childish night my companions lay frozen,
The stiff furs knocked at my starveling throat,
A... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
79bc181ae8440204 | She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways | William Wordsworth | She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S1-8",
"S2-7",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
3781ca232b604821 | Love Letters | Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard | Dear Letters, Fond Letters, Must I with you part? You are such a source of joy To my lonely heart. Sweet Letters, Dear Letters, What a tell you tell; O, no power on earth can break This strange mystic spell! Dear Letters, Fond Letters, You my secret know—Don’t you tell it, any one— Let it... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
34e1a810eb68d79b | To a Deaf and Dumb Little Girl | Hartley Coleridge | Like a loose island on the wide expanse,
Unconscious floating on the fickle sea,
Herself her all, she lives in privacy;
Her waking life as lonely as a trance,
Doom’d to behold the universal dance,
And never hear the music which expounds
The solemn step, coy slide, the merry bounds.
The vague, mute language of the count... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
8774365b3a29de9f | The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn | Andrew Marvell | The wanton troopers riding by Have shot my fawn, and it will die. Ungentle men! they cannot thrive To kill thee. Thou ne’er didst alive Them any harm, alas, nor could Thy death yet do them any good. I’m sure I never wish’d them ill, Nor do I for all this, nor will; But if my simple pray’rs may yet Prevail with Heaven t... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
b4876eb31b1f345c | Veterans of the Seventies | Marvin Bell | His army jacket bore the white rectangle of one who has torn off his name. He sat mute at the round table where the trip-wire veterans ate breakfast. They were foxhole buddies who went stateside without leaving the war. They had the look of men who held their breath and now their tongues. What is to say ... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
b5b326ae1ebb6526 | Snake | Katie Peterson | The thunderstorm came like a pot boiling over and the color
of water was made by that, all of a sudden, a pigment
more tropical than dense with the reflection of light.
Everywhere the scent of at least five different kinds of plants
lifted up. The desert can’t talk back but I believe
it breathes instead, breathes ... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S3-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
f598d2bf398f355a | Radiance | Margaret Hasse | The Roman candle of a yard light
caramelizes the old snow.
The glow trespasses the dark hold
of December, dimming the view
of the night sky with its winter
triangle a boy strains to see
through the haze, as he lets his jacket
hang open, unzipped to the cold.
He knows to return through
the black cleft between b... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-9",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Living/Youth"
] |
e0abbc86bfc6f941 | Fairy-Land | Edgar Allan Poe | Dim vales—and shadowy floods— And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can’t discover For the tears that drip all over: Huge moons there wax and wane— Again—again—again— Every moment of the night— Forever changing places— And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve by the moon-di... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
0a4fa3ff5daa1997 | Spring Snow | William Matthews | Here comes the powdered milk I drank
as a child, and the money it saved.
Here come the papers I delivered,
the spotted dog in heat that followed me home
and the dogs that followed her.
Here comes a load of white laundry
from basketball practice, and sheets
with their watermarks of semen.
And here comes snow, a ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-10",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Weather",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
9856c11a7f06035b | Sidewalk Games | Colleen J. McElroy | I
The sidewalks were long where I grew up.
They were as veined as the backs
Of my Grandma’s hands.
We knew every inch of pavement;
We jumped the cracks
Chanting rhymes that broke evil spirits,
Played tag at sunset
Among the fireflies and sweet maple trees
Or sang wishful sonnets about boyfriends
To the tune o... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S8-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
40a0b8ea4c091309 | Elegy in a Country Courtyard | G. K. Chesterton | The men that worked for England They have their graves at home: And birds and bees of England About the cross can roam. But they that fought for England, Following a falling star, Alas, alas for England They have their graves afar. And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
Th... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
4fe9b2a6e9d9758a | After the Air Tattoo | Fiona Sampson | All in the stilly night the muntjac roars from its hedge: a barking roar of July, heat, its own broken-open fruition under black viscose, a sky static with plane-roar. The intermission after the greatest air show in the world; fields and lane recovering; tarmac tonguing sky again, languid in the s... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
6fbd0ecd55de69ae | Delivery Rhyme | Dora Malech | For Alyssa
As anyoneis apt to, you began as someoneelse’s symptom. As inother beginnings: drawn lots, blood,some dancing on the heads of pinsand inside needles’ eyes,cellular revelry,hoppingof microscopicturnstiles. Lucky guest,grist, leaptlong odds to sparkthe tinder in the dark.Then, the subcommittees met:made merry... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f1e737e9fc0e32d6 | Hermeneutics | Kerri Webster | All winter she’s been growing more powerful.
Radiant, says the man at the bar.
Voluptuous, says the docent.
Nervy, says God.
All winter her soul has been juddering.
It feels like drinking gold flakes!
The word sleeps inside the stone.
The wind tongues the underside of the lake.
Inside the rifle scope of time, G... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S5-4",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
88f52dc43ae6e886 | from Rubaiyat: "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough" | Omar Khayaam | A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
0261cdcb3a40d8a5 | Winter | Anne Hunter | Behold the gloomy tyrant’s awful form
Binding the captive earth in icy chains;
His chilling breath sweeps o’er the watery plains,
Howls in the blast, and swells the rising storm.
See from its centre bends the rifted tower,
Threat’ning the lowly vale with frowning pride,
O’er the scared flocks that seek its sheltering s... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S3-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
a8db5eaeef85471e | Psalm on Sifnos | Stephen Yenser | One does not want,O Lord, to heapUp by still watersOf words a cairnBut hopes to attendA small covertOf tamariskWhose leaves saltyYet featheryWill shed light overA thickened plot.One wants at lastTo cede the fieldTo tamariskAnd mastic tree,To olive and stone,Stones in the fruit,Seed in the stones. | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
fc53db49a3005fbf | As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life | Walt Whitman | 1 As I ebb’d with the ocean of life, As I wended the shores I know, As I walk’d where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok, Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant, Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, Held by this electric self out ... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
4bfd71c183f2d184 | Unemployment (2) | Mark Levine | Another day come, add it To the list, theNot to do list.Son of mine,I was rambling across the undercarpetingStrewn with imperceptible tacksIn one shapeless slip-onWhen a pain rang out in my flankAnd I fell to,Braying,But who should answer but no one.I lost good cause that day, don’t ask,Let us sit a bit in this ill-sta... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
08c7959708206c83 | Beside the Broad Dordogne | Alan Feldman | I wake to the sound of water, and think,
"Mother has died and gone to France,"
She is at un autre hôtel, speaking French
better than ever, while I stare at the fog
that has a river in it—the broad Dordogne,
making its river noise, as if all the faucets
have been left on all night. The river
rushing in one direction onl... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
fc1737c897f290ec | The Well Rising | William E. Stafford | The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through deep ground
everywhere in the field—
The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer—
The swallow heart from wingbeat to wingbeat
counseling decision, decision:... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
9d159dd7ae28b82d | Discourse on Pure Virtue | George Elliott Clarke | à Geeta
The brown girl, golden, sable-eyed,
flourishing yellow hibiscus,
steps exuberant, august,
into August—
her lushly brocaded gold silk sari
lavishing honey light at her auburn feet,
sandalled, cedarly,
with scent of sandalwood haloing her,
her individualized, warm, light-dark body,
her every glance a di... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S2-2",
"S2-3",
"S2-8",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
ae30f5a22831921c | The Bear Hunt | Abraham Lincoln | A wild-bear chace, didst never see?
Then hast thou lived in vain.
Thy richest bump of glorious glee,
Lies desert in thy brain.
When first my father settled here,
’Twas then the frontier line:
The panther’s scream, filled night with fear
And bears preyed on the swine.
But woe for Bruin’s short lived fun,... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-8",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
283867c5e2239b7b | Sunday | Cynthia Zarin | i early morning
The rain, gray god with its huge hands
has shredded the roses, and clapping,
kept us up all night, the bridge washed out,
the troll waiting to gobble a goat.
How long has he been there, wet and cold,impatient, starving, his coat
rent with welts and matted with mist?Father, thundering, his voice fu... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S9-7",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Animals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
5db3d9a01a6af8a7 | from The Fatalist: Home whose names are produced by motion | Lyn Hejinian | Home whose names are produced by motion
is where people go (one following
the next as she hums to herself or he hums to himself
at some risk to all) to stay in a family plot
the tales of which are spinning like blades
on a pinwheel wafted by my desire to talk to you. Fate
and desire, chance and intention, from ti... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
55e40dfd441e0fb3 | Looking into History | Richard Wilbur | I.
Five soldiers fixed by Mathew Brady’s eye
Stand in a land subdued beyond belief.
Belief might lend them life again. I try
Like orphaned Hamlet working up his grief
To see my spellbound fathers in these men
Who, breathless in their amber atmosphere,
Show but the postures men affected then
And the hermit faces... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5466150f15a0a18b | Thin | Kay Ryan | How anything is known is so thin— a skin of ice over a pond only birds might confidently walk upon. A bird's worth of weight or one bird-weight of Wordsworth. | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-10",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
d0d38165cd812fd4 | Dear Gonglya, | Brenda Shaughnessy | The most inscrutable beautiful names in this world
always do sound like diseases.
It’s because they are engorged.
G., I am a fool.
What we feel in the solar plexus wrecks us.
Halfway squatting on a crate where feeling happened. Caresses.
You know corporeal gifts besmirch thieves like me.
But she plucks a feather... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
7c6bae79bc439bec | The Poet as Setting | Douglas Kearney | The jolt that comes to bones inside a tumbled streetcar
is what the painter considers as she strokes her-
self into story. There is less to the jolt that
comes as he shuts his eyes before the monitor, save
what he imagines—a lightning bolt, a god tapping
the shoulder. He imagines the sky swelling
with ceiling fan... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
a06d1fa7fee4c859 | The Daring One | Edwin Markham | I would my soul were like the bird
That dares the vastness undeterred.
Look, where the bluebird on the bough
Breaks into rapture even now!
He sings, tip-top, the tossing elm
As tho he would a world o’erwhelm.
Indifferent to the void he rides
Upon the wind’s eternal tides.
He tosses gladly on the gale,
For well... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
cc6b72e9a99a0787 | Mother Carey's Hen | David Yezzi | There are days I don’t think about the sea;
weeks wash by in fact,
then a shearwater—or some such—flutters by
on the salt flats fanning out in my mind’s eye,
reflected there, a shimmering reverie,
recalling the pact
I once made (and renew today) to hold
to a ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
6ab4c0a56e159df5 | Sarah Brown | Edgar Lee Masters | Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree. The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass, The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls, But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous In the blest Nirvana of eternal light! Go to the good heart that is my husband, Who broods upon what he calls our gu... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
3a99166fbbc76a96 | “Teach Us to Number Our Days” | Rita Dove | In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.
Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams
he has swallowed a blue bean.... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
ca5fb5c6806eceb1 | Fragments | Howard Altmann | An old man with a new hat
is running out of pride.
I want to tell the truth
but I don’t know how.
The wind is our best pen
and it blows poetry out of the water.
I wait for days and weeks to enter
a feeling that’s had years to leave.
The ocean keeps throwing questions
it has all the answers to.
A candle lights... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
c89527de0e275c38 | Eday, North Isles | Lesley Harrison | GUITH
a greylag morning,
the sea a conscious blue.
CALF SOUND
orca
in a sea blue room,
breathing pearls that rise to the surface.
GROATHA
the plenum of the shed:
every part infilled with flutter,
gl... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
908e4ca415053ef2 | Poet as Housewife | Elisabeth Eybers | Always a broom leaned against a wall,meals never on time, if they come at all.Days without dates through which she movesempty and stubborn, slightly confused.Ironing hung dejectedly over a chair,gestures that come from who-knows-where.Old letters unanswered, piled together,papers and pills stuffed deep in a drawer.Than... | [
"S3",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S9-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
a16da94858b98ba2 | Bees of Eleusis | Franz Wright | Unless a grain of wheat goes into the ground and dies, it remains nothing but a grain of wheat. —John 12:24
The ingredients gathered, a few small red tufts of the dream spoor per sheaf of Demeter’s blonde wheat, reaped in mourning, in silence, ground up with the pollen and mixed into white wine and honey. The... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-4",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
4578abbba99d6cf5 | Infidelity | Yusef Komunyakaa | Zeus always introduces himself
As one who needs stitching
Back together with kisses.
Like a rock star in leather
& sapphires—conflagration
& a trick of silk falling
Between lost chances & never
Again. His disguises are almost
Mathematical, as Io & Europa
Pass from their dreams into his.
This lord of storm clo... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
b7fc37a9191443c6 | Coyote Song | Marsha De La O | Inside the night, this hospital, asylum,
this party for those undone by desire, forever
unslaked, inside a house inside the night,
I'm inside
this house with eight beams and moonlight
pulling on the past through skylights, this house
of white noise, wind and dry heat, lonely
house on a ridge line, house of ordin... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-7",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-8",
"S9-7",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
c0d3a38e537c8c4a | One El Paso, Two El Paso | Ray Gonzalez | Awake in the desert to the sound of calling.
Must be the mountain, I thought.
The violent border, I assumed, though the boundary
line between the living and the dead was erased years ago.
Awake in the sand, I feared, old shoes decorated with
razor wire, a heaven of light on the peaks.
Must be time to get up, I as... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
181a69fc24df63d7 | Dolls | David St. John | They are so like
Us, frozen in a bald passion
Or absent
Gaze, like the cows whose lashes
Sag beneath their frail sacks of ice.
Your eyes are white with fever, a long
Sickness. When you are asleep,
Dreaming of another country, the wheat’s
Pale surface sliding
In the wind, you are walking in every breath
Away f... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
28f0f35c1d0d4fd0 | Writ on the Steps of Puerto Rican Harlem | Gregory Corso | There’s a truth limits man
A truth prevents his going any farther
The world is changing
The world knows it’s changing
Heavy is the sorrow of the day
The old have the look of doom
The young mistake their fate in that look
That is truth
But it isn’t all truth
Life has meaning
And I do not know the meaning
Even... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
8ae586f14d95b565 | Chewing slowly | Kabir | god my darling
do me a favour and kill my mother-in-law
—Janabai, tr. Arun Kolatkar
Chewing slowly,
Only after I’d eaten
My grandmother,
Mother,
Son-in-law,
Two brothers-in-law,
And father-in-law
(His big family included)
In that order,
And had for dessert
The town’s inhabitants,
Did I find, ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S8-3",
"S8-7",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
cbf7237b8c478c2d | Valais | Michael Hofmann | A working river, a working valley,
The gray-green Rhône
Lined with workings, heaps of dust, gravel, cement,
And log jams waiting for transport,
Like the island exporting itself to its neighbors one barge at a time.
The river, the road, and the railway,
A plait, a tangle, a place of through.
The river not navigab... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
f8951cb570fb9eb7 | Thicket | Atsuro Riley | We come gnawed by need on hands and knees.As a creature (nosing) grubble-seeks a spring.As bendy-spined as bandy snakes through saltshrub yaupon needle-brake.For darkling green;for thorn-surround.This absorbingquaggycr... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
9c6fc3f8c1300ba1 | The Entertainment of War | Roy Fisher | I saw the garden where my aunt had died
And her two children and a woman from next door;
It was like a burst pod filled with clay.
A mile away in the night I had heard the bombs
Sing and then burst themselves between cramped houses
With bright soft flashes and sounds like banging doors;
The last of them crushed t... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f62dfe0ea96bc353 | Matinee | Patrick Phillips | After the biopsy, after the bone scan, after the consult and the crying, for a few hours no one could find them, not even my sister, because it turns out they'd gone to the movies. Something tragic was playing, something epic, and so they went to the comedy with their popcorn and their cokes, t... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
2a6c622c9dd637e4 | The Road Not Taken | Robert Frost | Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
172e186371b5d212 | Pastoral Dialogue | Anne Killigrew | Remember when you love, from that same hour Your peace you put into your lover’s power; From that same hour from him you laws receive, And as he shall ordain, you joy, or grieve, Hope, fear, laugh, weep; Reason aloof does stand, Disabled both to act, and to command. Oh cruel fetters! rather wish to feel On your soft li... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
b4f4be5b7785a249 | Killing Floor | Ai | 1. RUSSIA, 1927
On the day the sienna-skinned man
held my shoulders between his spade-shaped hands,
easing me down into the azure water of Jordan,
I woke ninety-three million miles from myself,
Lev Davidovich Bronstein,
shoulder-deep in the Volga,
while the cheap dye of my black silk shirt darkened the water.
M... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
33b2b6f92b809dc2 | original [sin] | Alison C. Rollins | In ancient Greece, for all her heroes, for Medea ... water meant death.
— Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones
i poured a bowl of cereal,
threw the empty box in the
trash can. granddaddy pulled
the box from the trash,
poured the crumbs into a
bowl, then doused the sand
in milk. he looked down at the
bowl, murm... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-4",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
36ae118a4370ffcd | Horses on the Grass | Grace Schulman | From the tower window
the moon
draws a silver maple’s shadow
across a spangled lawn;
horses
rear, manes lashing the air,
front legs floating.
Half monarch,
half shadow, the tree
aspires to the sky;
one branch, cracked by lightning,
scrapes the e... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
5ab6d0fa5e130d36 | What Would You Prefer? | Drew Gardner | Nobody sings about alligator eyes anymore,
barely peeking out of the water,
bouncing on the ground and rolling
into the pond, leucistic.
People think of traits,
symmetrical fetuses giving orders from space,
making playlists even as they’re being born.
Things have come to eyes
that gaze in directions we can’t th... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
e8818b5966f268b6 | By Guess and by Gosh | John Ashbery | O awaken with methe inquiring goodbyes.Ooh what a messy businessa tangle and a muddle(and made it seem quite interesting).He ticks them off:leisure top,a different ride home,whispering, in a way,whispered whiskers,so many of the things you have to share.But I was getting on,and that’s what you don’t need.I’m certainly ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
c6ab5776dcf4cd03 | I Wish I Want I Need | Gail Mazur | The black kitten cries at her bowlmeek meek and the gray one glowers
from the windowsill. My hand on the can
to serve them. First day of spring.
Yesterday I drove my little mother for hours
through wet snow. Her eightieth birthday.
What she wanted was that ride with me—
shopping, gossiping, mulling old grievances... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
201c5d7582c1adda | Night Singing | W. S. Merwin | Long after Ovid’s story of Philomela
has gone out of fashion and after the testimonials
of Hafiz and Keats have been smothered in comment
and droned dead in schools and after Eliot has gone home
from the Sacred Heart and Ransom has spat and consigned
to human youth what he reduced to fairy number... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
fbce3a7b134593b5 | The Search for Lost Lives | James Tate | I was chasing this blue butterfly down
the road when a car came by and clipped me.
It was nothing serious, but it angered me and
I turned around and cursed the driver who didn't
even slow down to see if I was hurt. Then I
returned my attention to the butterfly which
was nowhere to be seen. One of the Doubleday
g... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S5-7",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
0790ced9bdc8fb25 | The Darkling Thrush | Thomas Hardy | I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
d7afa05dbdb6494b | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 105 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | To-night ungather'd let us leave This laurel, let this holly stand: We live within the stranger's land, And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. Our father's dust is left alone And silent under other snows: There in due time the woodbine blows, The violet comes, but we are gone. No mor... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ebfb32558c961444 | Four Postulates | Michael Anania | for Anselm Hollo
I
what is most valued,
the cherished things
any moment in Iowa
settles so carelessly
upon you—cat stickers,
a coded signal Home
Orange Juice is trucking by,
some morning or any day
when winter spring summer
and the poem begin againII
who was it started laughing?
someone otherwise somber,
... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
fe21adcee4553e8e | Ianthe! You are Call’d to Cross the Sea | Walter Savage Landor | Ianthe! you are call’d to cross the sea! A path forbidden me! Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds Upon the mountain-heads, How often we have watcht him laying down His brow, and dropt our own Against each other’s, and how faint and short And sliding the support! What will succ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
ad9b0820ef18a9c7 | The Toothless Wonder | Phil Bolsta | Last night when I was sound asleep,
My little brother Keith
Tiptoed into my bedroom
And pulled out all my teeth.
You’d think that I would be upset
And jump and spit and swear.
You’d think that I would tackle Keith
And pull out all his hair.
But no! I’m glad he did it.
So what if people stare.
Now, thanks to... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-1"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends"
] |
4f50af9ab8d1058f | On the Beach at Night | Walt Whitman | On the beach at night, Stands a child with her father, Watching the east, the autumn sky. Up through the darkness, While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky, Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east, Ascends large and calm the ... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-9",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
6b42ea9100a95728 | Weaning | Leslie Adrienne Miller | I. Deer Season
The quiet of windows pours its sand in my ear.What, what? ask the dolls of evening
though they do not wish to hear my answer.
Five hens are alive in the brush, purring
toward the slough. No one here has a rifle
but the wind turns abruptly and returns a report.
Three bright orange vests hang at the ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
14fa8ba22eaff5b6 | The Farm | Joyce Sutphen | My father’s farm is an apple blossomer.
He keeps his hills in dandelion carpet
and weaves a lane of lilacs between the rose
and the jack-in-the-pulpits.
His sleek cows ripple in the pastures.
The dog and purple iris
keep watch at the garden’s end.
His farm is rolling thunder,
a lightning bolt on the horizon.
H... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
1db283356c85871c | What’s Left | W. S. Di Piero | How often now, raging weeping for the dayslove gives then takes away, takes from youthe slightly chapped hand laid on the oneyou’re pointing at a tree, and the voice that breathes coffeeberry bush into your mouth. The finger that taps and feathers your earbut the giggle’s gone before you turn around.The sandalwood sce... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-3"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss"
] |
77decba883d95742 | Winter Journal: Scratchings among the Burnings | Emily Wilson | clouds in rafts above, upon one another, pushed up along
the margin of sky
dark underbellies
Shirring of grasses and the nearly empty apple tree behind
Where is this beginning from?
The roll of clouds bolsters up close
moves vaguely east
Hear the interstate, its rush of backdrop constant
Oh... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter"
] |
8a01719773fb1189 | Exodus | George Oppen | Miracle of the children the brilliant
Children the word
Liquid as woodlands Children?
When she was a child I read Exodus
To my daughter 'The children of Israel. . .'
Pillar of fire
Pillar of cloud
We stared at the end
Into each other's eyes ... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
10624443e51e9996 | 'According to the Mighty Working' | Thomas Hardy | I When moiling seems at cease In the vague void of night-time, And heaven's wide roomage stormless Between the dusk and light-time, And fear at last is formless, We call the allurement Peace. II Peace, this hid riot, Change, This revel of quick-cued mumming, ... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
c271046d476fe87f | Parenthesis | Valerie Mejer Caso | Nothing's in the nest. No needles. No newborn ravens.
Maybe something like night in the deep hollow,
an eggshell planet, cracked in the middle, an empty bowl of soup.
Nothing's in the nest. No thread. No webs of words.
Maybe something like my navel, the eclipse of a magnifying glass.
A slice, mute with regard to i... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ba12abd041ec1b45 | David Ignatow, 1914–1997 | Gerard Malanga | I am as guilty as many. No one speaks of David Ignatow anymore.
No one speaks of your lonesome time in the New York boonies,
those outer reaches of Jamaica,
where the Z & J Lines go no more.
No one speaks of your sparsely furnished rooms,
the low-slung Danish sofa where you sit and muse and daydream
out the grim... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
18b6050a7978a6a7 | Midwinter | Sophie Jewett | All night I dreamed of roses,
Wild tangle by the sea,
And shadowy garden closes.
Dream-led I met with thee.
Around thee swayed the roses,
Beyond thee sang the sea;
The shadowy garden closes
Were Paradise to me.
O Love, ’mid the dream-roses
Abide to heal, to save!
The world that day discloses
... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
4b88638a92f023e1 | To the King on his Navy | Edmund Waller | Where’er thy navy spreads her canvas wings, Homage to thee, and peace to all, she brings: The French and Spaniard, when thy flags appear, Forget their hatred, and consent to fear. So Jove from Ida did both hosts survey, And when he pleas’d to thunder, part the fray. Ships heretofore in seas like fishes sped, The mighti... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
c51c5a6a39d5580e | King Prion | Joyelle McSweeney | —Hoooooooo
Lay in an array of pixels
Fat, simulated proteinsLooks just like nutrition!Acts just like an avatar!
I just wanted to give my body to
A net of guarine
Gingko-balboa azatine melamine
Camphobacter phylacter nicotine
Which hung like neuron-nectar in a cell, net of
Vatic coughdropped hairball tells the f... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
7b3263999f74ef4e | Gloves | Kaveh Akbar | How long can you speak.
Without inhaling. How long.
Can you inhale without.
Bursting apart. History is wagging.
Its ass at us. Twirling in its silver.
Cape. I want to kiss.
Your scalp. I want you to kiss.
My friends. Can you see the wet.
Azalea quivering.
On its vine. Its ripening.
Dread. If it never rained a... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
7575b51145648ec4 | Poem for Bill Cassidy | Matthew Zapruder | I wish I wouldlike a shipthat all night carriesits beloved captainsleeping throughno weatherslip past dawnand wake with nothingbut strange thingsthat did not happento reportbut I get upin the darkand parachutequietly downto the kitchento beginthe purely mentalritual pluggingin of the uselessworry machineabove meshe sle... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
1bacb674fb565a1a | In the Corridor | Saskia Hamilton | I passed through, I should have paused,there were a hundred doors. One opened. In there, someone whose name is not yet known to me lived out his middle years in simple terms, two chairs, one place laid for early breakfast, one plate with dry toast and butter softening. There his mind raced through writings he had memor... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
bfb6f252194d2af2 | The Bell | Richard Jones | In the tower the bell
is alone, like a man
in his room,
thinking and thinking.
The bell is made of iron.
It takes the weight
of a man
to make the bell move.
Far below, the bell feels
hands on a rope.
It considers this.
It turns its head.
Miles away,
a man in his room
hears the clear sound,
and lifts his ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
fa46748646e87a3f | Cutting Odette’s Fingernails | Bianca Stone | Who is the barber
with the straight razor
at the neck of the Mad King,
the physician of the Don
who must hold his broken feet
and cloudy wisps of hair
from between his legs
while he knows nothing?
The possibilities
are numerous—what jobs
we get ourselves into.
I feel like at this moment
I could be anyone in... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
0271f24b34799e07 | Winter in Gold River | Catie Rosemurgy | Pretty girl. The weather has knocked her down again
and given her to the lake to wear as a skin.
Why am I always being the weather?
There were days in the winter
when her smile was so lovely I felt
the breathing of my own goodness,
though it remained fetal and separate.
I was a scavenger who survives
with a sli... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
96049018779482b6 | Osage County Museum, Pawhuska, Oklahoma | Diane Glancy | It’s mostly the same here
slow as melonvines in an arctic sun
where the great ball of the plane
went down in nineteen thirty-five & an eskimo
with a camera took a picture that stayed
in his camera twenty-one years
& by some chance he told
an explorer who bought the film
& found the crash
& the bodies under tar... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
c6ddbf660f5f42f2 | In the Absence of Bliss | Maxine Kumin | Museum of the Diaspora, Tel Aviv
The roasting alive of rabbis
in the ardor of the Crusades
went unremarked in Europe from
the Holy Roman Empire to 1918, | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-11",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
db54884e7aa669f3 | Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle IV | Alexander Pope | Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S4-1",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
d3bf097ea68899a8 | from By the Well of Living and Seeing, Part II, Section 28: “During the Second World War” | Charles Reznikoff | During the Second World War, I was going home one night
along a street I seldom used. All the stores were closed
except one—a small fruit store.
An old Italian was inside to wait on customers.
As I was paying him I saw that he was sad.
“You are sad,” I said. “What is troubling you?”
“Yes,” he said, “I am sad.” Th... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-11",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
0bb18dcf6665335b | Letters to Walt Whitman | Ronald Johnson | II hear you are whispering there O stars of heaven,
O suns—O grass of graves. . .
If you do not say anything how can I say anything? | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
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